SIXTY years after Hattie McDaniel took home an Oscar for Mammy in “Gone With the Wind,” great roles for black actresses have all but vanished into thin air.

While 1999 was an astonishingly successful year for African-American actors in terms of box-office winners and critical acclaim, it was an equally awful one for their female counterparts. Neither established performers nor up-and-comers did anything of note.

Partly it was a matter of choice. Queen Latifah and Whoopi Goldberg (the last black woman to win an Academy Award) turned their energies to television. Both had supporting roles this year on the large screen – in “The Bone Collector” and “Girl, Interrupted,” respectively – that were OK but not great.

All of which raises the question: Where is the next generation of black actresses?

It’s a question that’s particularly puzzling in light of the breakout year enjoyed by black actors.

Denzel Washington led the field, scoring at the box office in “The Bone Collector” and emerging as the front-runner for Best Actor for his role as unfairly imprisoned boxer Rubin Carter in “The Hurricane,” which opened Wednesday. (If he wins, it will be his second Oscar.)

There were other critical triumphs, too. Michael Clarke Duncan will likely get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for “The Green Mile,” and Jeffrey Wright has an outside shot in the same category for his work as a freed slave in “Ride With the Devil.”

And as far as box-office clout goes, this was perhaps the best year ever for black actors.

A movie with an all-black, male-dominated cast – “The Best Man,” written and directed by Spike Lee’s younger cousin Malcolm – finished No. 1 on its Oct. 22 opening weekend, collecting $9 million and beating out “Fight Club” and Martin Scorsese’s “Bringing out the Dead.”

In fact, during three successive weeks in late October and early November, the top-grossing movie in the country featured a leading role by an African-American man: “The Best Man,” “House on Haunted Hill” and “The Bone Collector.”

The fact that Taye Diggs starred in the first two of these films proves he’s no longer up-and-coming; he’s arrived. Altogether, Diggs appeared in four features.

Washington had a surprise hit as a paraplegic criminologist in “The Bone Collector,” which has grossed more than $63 million. And Martin Lawrence brought home box-office gold with “Blue Streak,” which raked in more than $19 million during its late September opening weekend.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the year was the range of roles available to men.

For decades following McDaniel’s Oscar win, blacks seemed relegated to certain parts: slaves, servants, criminals or athletes. But this year, black actors had some of the broadest roles possible, including Diggs in a variety of genres, Lawrence in action-adventure-humor and rapper Ice Cube as a spiritual Gulf War GI in “Three Kings” (which has some critics talking Oscar nomination).

Comedian Chris Rock got good notices as the 13th Apostle in Kevin Smith’s religious satire “Dogma,” and fellow comic Jamie Foxx proved that he could do drama as well as humor, starring as the hot rookie quarterback in Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday.”

Clearly, black men outdid black women on every front, but there are positive signs ahead.

Hip-hop chanteuse Eryka Badu gave a memorable performance in “The Cider House Rules,” her screen debut. And next year should be more fruitful, with Berry in the long-awaited “X-Men,” (based on the popular Marvel comic book) and Bassett starring in two sci-fi flicks (one opposite Dustin Hoffman). And Jada Pinkett Smith returns with Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled.”

It’s up to them to carry Hattie McDaniel’s legacy into the 21st century.